A Traditional Royal Wedding, but for the 3 Billion Witnesses

Roaring crowds (and a scowling bridesmaid) greeted Prince William and Kate Middleton for their kiss on the balcony of Buckingham Palace on Friday.Credit
James Hill for The New York Times

LONDON — In the end, Friday’s wedding between Prince William and Kate Middleton may not have ushered in a new dawn for the frayed royal family or brought a renewed era of optimism to a country beset by financial woes, as some predicted in the overheated countdown to the big day. But it proved that the British still know how to combine pageantry, solemnity and romance (and wild hats) better than anyone else in the world.

It was an impeccably choreographed occasion of high pomp and heartfelt emotion, of ancient customs tweaked by modern developments (Elton John brought his husband).

Viewing estimates for the ceremony, at 11 a.m. British time on the dot, hovered in the three billion range, give or take 500 million. Australians held bouquet-throwing competitions; people in Hong Kong wore Kate and William masks; New Yorkers rose by dawn to watch the entrance of guests like Victoria Beckham, teetering pregnantly in sky-high Christian Louboutin heels, Guy Ritchie, the former Mr. Madonna, and assorted monarchs from European countries that are no longer monarchies, like Bulgaria.

In London, the Metropolitan Police said, a million people lined the route of the royal procession, and half a million gathered in front of Buckingham Palace to watch the bride and groom, now known as the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, kiss (twice) on the palace balcony.

“I never really think too seriously about them,” said Kathy Gunn, 54, speaking of the royal family. Yet she had somehow been inexorably sucked into the spirit of the occasion, watching it unfold with a crowd on a huge screen at a cafe in central London. “It gives you a great sense of community and spirit,” she said. “I am a royalist for the day.”

In a world of scattered attention, the occasion had the effect of providing a single international conversation about a subject with universal appeal. It was like a party scene in “Dallas,” only with Prince Philip instead of J. R. Ewing.

Grizzled political correspondents, hauled in to television studios to serve as wedding anchors, found themselves talking in all seriousness about the passementerie of the mother of the bride’s dress and the provenance of Miss Middleton’s tiara. (She borrowed it from Queen Elizabeth, in case you were wondering. It is made of a great many diamonds.)

There was a feast of interesting particulars. First, Kate’s dress. Though The Daily Mail successfully predicted the name of the designer — Sarah Burton at Alexander McQueen — it was still an official secret, so much so that Ms. Burton tried to sneak into Kate’s hotel on Thursday night with her face mostly obscured by a huge yeti-like fur hat.

St. James’s Palace released the details of the dress just as Miss Middleton stepped out of a royal Rolls-Royce with her father, Michael, to walk down the aisle at Westminster Abbey.

Photo

The couple now known as the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge left Buckingham Palace on Friday in an Aston Martin Volante.Credit
Chris Ison/Press Association, via Associated Press

Her “something old” was the design of the dress, using traditional craftsmanship. “Something new” was represented by her earrings, a gift from her parents. The tiara was borrowed, and she had a blue ribbon sewn into her dress for her blue item.

Prince William wore the bright scarlet coat of an Irish Guards mounted officer, the uniform of his senior honorary army appointment. He was wearing “gold sword slings,” St. James’s Palace said, but no sword.

The outfits of the guests were generally tasteful and royal-friendly. A few things stuck out. The exotic costumes of foreign dignitaries, seeming throwbacks to imperial times. The hats worn by the ladies, which resembled, variously, overturned buckets, flowerpots, lampshades, fezzes, salad plates, tea cozies, flying saucers, abstract artworks or, in one case, a pile of feathers. There were also a number of fascinators, decorative shapes with flowers or feathers, that are stuck in one’s hair but are not hats.

Mr. Cameron wore a traditional morning suit. The dress code had filled him with angst this month when news broke out that in order to avoid appearing too posh, he intended to wear a regular business suit, what the British call a “lounge suit.” But as scorn poured upon him — he is in fact posh and frequently wears posh clothes — he said that he would wear a morning suit after all.

Some questions were also raised about the guest list. John Major and Margaret Thatcher, former Conservative prime ministers, were invited; Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, former Labour prime ministers, were not. (Mr. Major attended; Lady Thatcher was ill and stayed home.) The Syrian ambassador was invited, and then uninvited. Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York, was never invited.

The new duchess, of course, has parents who made their own fortune with an Internet party-accouterments business. Even a generation ago, she would have been considered unthinkable as a prospective royal bride.

The country’s merciless news media have been watching hopefully, and mostly fruitlessly, for signs of middle-class behavior from the Middletons. One TV commentator, standing outside the Goring Hotel, which the Middletons rented for the night before the wedding, remarked, “It’s sometimes hard to tell who are Middletons and who are staff.”

But except for having no titles, no inherited tiaras and no military uniforms, the Middletons were indistinguishable from the guests at the wedding. The bride’s mother, Carole, wore a lovely outfit by Catherine Walker, an aristocrat-approved designer; she did not chew gum, as she was said to have done once when she appeared in public at a royal event, or exhibit déclassé tendencies of any kind.

Kate’s elevation, such as it is, to royalty adds a special frisson to the story of her romance with William. The world knows that there are often no fairy-tale endings to these made-for-television moments — the collapse of the marriage of William’s parents being the most obvious example. But this couple seems to be a real one, with the potential to resuscitate the image of a royal family tarnished by misadventures like the antics of Prince Harry and Prince Andrew, and resentment over privilege and expenditures.

Kate, who promised to love William but not to obey him, is not actually a princess yet (if she were, she would be called Princess William, which is perhaps not a dream title). But she seems already at ease in what will now be a lifetime job, one with a heavy burden of responsibility as well as great privilege. As the couple drove in their horse-drawn carriage from the church to Buckingham Palace, she waved like a pro — from the wrist, the royal way.

Ravi Somaiya contributed reporting.

A version of this article appears in print on April 30, 2011, on Page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: A Traditional Royal Wedding, But for the 3 Billion Witnesses. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe